


Sky Full of Stars

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Paint The Sky With Stars [3]
Category: Night World - Fandom, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Crossover, Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 14:38:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6859093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "any, any, <i>But it's too late to come on home / Are all those bridges now old stone? / But it's too late to come on home? / Can't the city forgive? I hear its sad song.</i>"</p><p>John finds out from Rodney that not all the bridges between them are burnt, that they still have one bridge made of silver cord.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sky Full of Stars

“So the Marines are reporting that there’s a panther loose in the city.” Rodney didn’t look up from his keyboard, tapping away at a mile a minute. For all John knew, he was just typing the same letter over and over and over.

“He’s a black jaguar, not a black leopard.” John stood beside Rodney’s desk. Ordinarily he’d perch on the corner like a bored kid, swing his legs and pepper Rodney with questions just to watch him blush and get all flustered. He couldn’t do that today. Didn’t have to right to that easy familiarity with Rodney right now, not after what had happened with Lorne.

“You decided to stop macerating his heart in a blender on the regular, then?”

“Something like that.”

Rodney flicked a glance at him, expression unreadable. “Are you finally going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“Why every time we touch it’s like an electric jolt even when there’s no possibility of static build-up. Why sometimes I can feel you across the city. Why sometimes you can feel me.” Rodney speared him with another glance. “And don’t deny it. You _can_ feel me.”

“I can.”

“Is this part of the whole vampire thing?”

“No. After all, you’re human.”

“So, what is it? Am I your own personal brand of heroin?”

“No! I don’t want to feed off of you, Rodney. I don’t _want_ to feed off of anyone. I don’t _need_ to feed off of anyone.” John stared down at his hands. How to explain?

“Then what are you doing to me? Some kind of vampire mind-whammy? I know vampires can hypnotize their prey with their eyes. You have those - those eyes.” Rodney made a fumbling gesture that must have encompassed all the colors of John’s eyes.

Damn Redfern eyes. “We’re soulmates.”

Rodney scoffed. “There’s no such thing as souls.”

“You used to believe there was no such thing as aliens.”

“Actually, given the size of the universe, the likelihood that our planet was the only life-sustaining one was ridiculous.”

“I don’t understand it, okay? Soulmates are - were - a thing of the past. Of legend. When the others said the Old Powers, the Old Magic was stirring, I figured it was wishful thinking. Prophecies, magic. I joined the Air Force to get away from it.”

Rodney lifted his head, raised his eyebrows. “You’re saying what happens between us is magic? Some kind of arbitrary magical bond between two people just because?”

“This thing you call the ATA gene. It’s magic,” John said. “At least, that’s how I’ve always understood it. Every natural gene carrier on the Expedition? Has magic in their blood. Beckett’s descended from a witch. Lorne has witch-blood in him.”

“You said you were only half vampire.”

“Yes. My mother was lamia. And my father is a witch.”

“Wouldn’t he be a warlock?”

“No. It’s like ‘men’ is an all-encompassing term for humans. ‘Witch’ is an all encompassing term for - never mind. What I’m trying to say is that magic is just science we don’t understand. Carson figured out a way to give people magic through gene therapy. I don’t know _how_ the Silver Cord works, I just know that it exists and it does work.” John wet his lips, picked his next words carefully.

“And what does it do?”

“Allows us to sense each other. Read each other’s minds. I’ve heard some soulmates can dreamwalk each other.”

“And it’s the reason I’ve been achingly in love with you for two years?” Rodney caught his gaze and held it, and John felt like he was the one being hypnotized by Rodney’s eyes. “That’s why every time we touch I feel like I’m finally coming alive, and when you pull away I feel like you’ve gutted me all over again, like the first time you fed on me and then pushed me away? Why every time I saw Lorne leave your quarters I wanted to die and I wanted to kill you? Why I would die for you in a heartbeat?”

“I feel the same way about you.”

“Then why the _hell_ were you sleeping with Lorne?”

John’s mind spun. “Because I was afraid! Because I -”

“Because you what?” Rodney was on his feet, eyes flashing, tone challenging. “Because you’re a damn coward? Because you couldn’t handle feeling like your heart was one constant lightning storm? You think _I_ deserved to handle that alone?”

John shook his head. He couldn’t explain it. There were no words, no - He caught Rodney by the shoulders and tugged him close.

“Don’t you dare kiss me,” Rodney spat, turning his face away, but John leaned in, pressed their foreheads together.

And the walls between them dissolved. John was bathed in the light of an eternity of stars. Forks of lightning danced between the constellations in Rodney’s mind, because he was angry, but he was beautiful, and perfect, and precious, and he’d been in love with John this whole time, and John, John had been so stupid.

_Yes. Stupid. You idiot._ My _idiot. I love you, dammit._

And then Rodney was running, launching, leaping, landing in John’s mind. John’s endless flying sky was bereft of white fluffy clouds. Instead of blue skies and sunshine, it was giant black thunderheads and a blood-red moon. John retreated automatically into the smoke, into the vapor and shadows, but Rodney chased him, and everywhere he looked, everywhere he stepped, light blossomed.

And Rodney said, _Come with me. Come home._

And then John’s sky was full of stars.


End file.
